Monday, June 27, 2011

Remembering Gene Colan: Jaws 2 by Marschall, Colan, and Palmer.

As you no doubt know, we lost the great Gene Colan late last week. I think about all the hours and years of joy he brought to so many with his unique and amazing art style. Daredevil. Sub-Mariner. Iron Man. Dr. Strange. Captain America. Tomb of Dracula. Howard the Duck. And that's just scratching the surface of his Groovy Age/Marvel work. In the 80s he took his super-powered pencils to DC to great acclaim. Throughout the 90s and up until just recently, Gene kept giving of his talent. The man was a true artist. Many claim he almost literally painted with his pencil, and anyone fortunate enough to have seen his original art would no doubt agree.

I wanted to pay him a tribute today. Many throughout the internet already have, and have done it much more eloquently or authoritatively than I'm able to do. I'm just a fan with a blog, but I know one thing: the Greatness of Gene Colan will be sorely missed, but his legacy will be remembered for at least as long as I live. For my humble part, I decided to pull out something that might be forgotten, and will probably never see print again. It's one of my all-time favorite comics, Jaws 2 from Marvel Super-Special #6 (Summer 1978). Gene's pencils are inked and painted by the one man who, in Ol' Groove's opinion, totally "got" Gene's pencils and made a perfect partner, Tom Palmer. The adaptation of Jaws 2 is also significant in that it's Marvel's first attempt at "Super Marvel-Color", a painstaking and breathtaking "next step" in comicbook evolution that's forgotten today, buried under mountains of computer-colored slick comics. For Marvel it started right here, Groove-ophiles.

Usually if a story is over ten or so pages, Ol' Groove breaks it up into a big splash and tons of thumbnails in order to share it with ya. Today, in honor of Mr. Colan, every page in this 46 page adaptation is super-sized. It'll make for a lot of scrolling, but I think these pages are worth it. Don't you?

13 comments:

Yes...inside the magazine is an article about the entire coloring process...very informative and very eye catching work. I believe this is the first book they used this process on as it was developed specifically for the magazine...I do believe there were several other Marvel Super specials that used this process...but alas...it has gone bye bye these days as you stated. Genes work beautiful. ( which I believe was the point ) rip Mr. Colon.

A wonderful reminder of the Deans amazing talent - I wasn't even aware of thi sbook so thank you for sharing - Gene was genuinely one of my all time favourites, whilst his work on Tomb of Dracula is undoubtably a high point in the artform its his work on Daredevl that did it for me, Miller and Romita Jnr were good , Colan was brillaint = thanks again Gene for all the fun and a great tribute well done Groove. McScooty

Greetings Groovy One! It was with a very heavy heart I heard of Gene's passing. We only met once in person in sept of 98. At the Thunderbird hotel in Minn. No one knew he was going to be there. They forgot to put his name on the fliers!

We'll after meeting him & having him do a sketch. He asked me if I'd like to sit & chat. Of course I said YES! Figuring after 10-15 mins I'd be on my way. I ended up sitting at his table with him for 3 hours! That was quite a experience.

Gene was a class act, a great artist & a soft spoken gentle soul. We ended up becoming friends, he'd even call me up to just chat at all hours! LOL Imagine my surprise to hear my cell phone ring once at 11pm. Only to see it was Gene Colan!

It was very cool & sureal, growing up as a boy to a young adult. I never dreamt in a million years I'd be friends with Gene. Along with Joe Sinnott, Herb Trimpe, John Romita SR etc. I had the sad duty of breaking the news of his passing. To these childhood idols of mine as well. Just as I had of George Tuska's passing with Joe Sinnott on his last birthday.

Ironically the last phone conversation I had with Gene. Was about death & the hereafter. I like to think Gene is up there. drawing his heart out, along with Jack Kirby, Bill Everett,& all the rest of those greats. Thanks groovy one for posting this book. I've never seen it, either I must have missed it. Or I was in the Marines overseas at the time. The artwork & coloring is beautiful.

One thing I loved about the draft written before Gottlieb's version is that the shark is so vicious and aggressive that I truly hated the thing by the end of the script and was happy to see it die a rather agonizing death. If you liked this comic, read that first script (it's online). I love Colan's depiction of the shark's death here, so explosive. And the text is right: it deserved those volts! :-)

Totally agree! Loved this comic! It's a shame Universal brass didn't go with this better version. There was more emphasis on Chief Brody's post traumatic stress and the sailing teens had more character development. The shark is a menacing bitch too!

Wow, what a great tribute to an amazing artist. I've never seen this Jaws 2 magazine before. The colors are gorgeous. The artwork? Glorious and bright for Colan, despite the grizzly, exciting subject matter.Well, done, G.A.!

This might have been better than the movie! Thanks for sharing it. I'd like to see this reprinted, but who knows what sorts of rights issues there are to clear up first. Agreed about the coloring, it looks amazing.

As mentioned before here! This comic was based on director John Hancock's version before he was removed from the project. The screenplay was by Howard Sackler/Dorthy Tristan. This is what the Jaws 2 film should have been. Hancock's vision was a darker and more violent picture than what ended up on screen. Amity is on the brink of going bankrupt and the shark attacks were to be just as violent with twice the body count of the first film. The third act had the sailing kids lost in thick fog at dusk so you would never be sure where the shark would pop out next. This would have been intense stuff on screen. I had this comic as a kid and now I totally regret selling it. Gene's work on this comic was ahead of its time.

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Note to "The Man": All images are presumed copyright by the respective copyright holders and are presented here as fair use under applicable laws, man! If you hold the copyright to a work I've posted and would like me to remove it, just drop me an e-mail and it's gone, baby, gone.

All other commentary and insanity copyright GroovyAge, Ltd.

As for the rest of ya, the purpose of this blog is to (re)introduce you to the great comics of the 1970s. If you like what you see, do what I do--go to a comics shop, bookstore, e-Bay or whatever and BUY YOUR OWN!